Tuesday April 22, 2008

The Fallout

The Fallout
The fiasco that happened in Durham on Sunday created a buzz in our community but also throughout the region. I hope many of you read Dan Scott’s commentary on Tigernet yesterday but if you have not please do so today. Dan was at the game and has given us a great glimpse of what really happened on the campus of Duke University Sunday.

Yesterday Duke sent out a statement that included an official statement from their head baseball coach Sean McNally that sounded like an official statement. It really said nothing because it was an official statement and lacked any common sense or real answers.

As far as real answers are concerned my friend Frank sent the following letter to ACC Commissioner John Swofford. No one has summed it better than Frank in his letter.

Commissioner Swofford:
The events of the April 20th Clemson versus Duke ACC baseball game must not be allowed to stand. For a conference that prides itself on sportsmanship, Duke's failure to implement reasonable and equitable game management principles was abhorrent.

Through incompetence and/or poor sportsmanship on Duke's part, the outcome of a critical conference baseball game was compromised! Duke obviously failed to manage the game properly during a lightning delay. If the threat of severe weather is imminent, the tarp must be pulled to cover the infield. Duke's incompetence or abject chicanery resulted in a failure to implement this basic baseball task.

The players and coaches on both squads were denied the opportunity to contest the outcome to conclusion, in a circumstance that clearly dictated actions other than those that transpired. Duke's game management personnel should be admonished for allowing the grounds crew to abandon their posts. Indeed Duke should also be cited for having an inadequate number of grounds crew for the purpose of providing the basic task of pulling a tarp onto the field as the situation requires. Dukes' baseball coach and game management officials should be held up as an example of precisely "what should not be done" from a good sportsmanship perspective. Additionally, were I a Duke baseball player, I would be incensed that my own coach and athletic event managers denied me the opportunity to win the game in the bottom of the 11th inning. I suspect that the frustration on the Clemson side was even higher.

Clemson is on the threshold of a capital campaign for baseball, but events such as those that occurred on Sunday afternoon potentially undermine the credibility of the entire sport of baseball as conducted by the Atlantic Coast Conference. Why would any reasonable potential donor want to invest his/her money in something that is so poorly managed. Why bother to have teams travel extreme distances from their campuses if they can not expect an event to be contested to conclusion in a fair and equitable manner. It is imperative that you and your staff move to protect the integrity of the game! I seriously doubt that the ACC baseball equivalent of Babe Ruth is on the horizon to "save" the sport from itself should these poor examples of sportsmanship and game management be allowed to stand and persist.

I beseech you on behalf of the sport of baseball, and more specifically on behalf of ACC baseball, to overturn the "tie" that was promulgated upon us yesterday afternoon. Among the options that are available to you, forfeiture of the game of April 20, 2008, by Duke University, is the only equitable outcome for this travesty of fairness and sportsmanship standards! Indeed, Duke University should be prohibited from hosting future ACC sanctioned baseball games, if indeed they are unable or unwilling to provide basic services associated with properly managing such an event!

Thank You,
Frank _______

The Real Issues
We all know the ACC won’t do anything here but the issues remain. Is Duke capable of hosting sporting events and providing the basic needs of events? Are three members of a grounds crew enough? Should the umpires have more control? We hear that Duke only has dial-up internet access at their baseball facility. With the radar technology available should we not require faster equipment to insure safety?

We all know what happened and it was obvious bad sportsmanship and a bad example was sent to players and fans. Duke could have finished the game if they wanted. Winning and losing became more important than fairness and sportsmanship.

The other issue that needs to be looked into is the curfew. The ACC rule states that a new inning cannot start after a certain time on Sunday afternoon. On paper this is a great plan because baseball players are student-athletes and the student should come first. Many times these teams have to take long bus rides back to their campus and this protects the academic interests of each baseball player.

However, I think we need to look at the schedule and see if there is any way to insure we are able to finish each series. This rule has had an effect all too often. It happened again this weekend with the crucial Miami-FSU series when third and final game was called after seven innings because of the time rule. College baseball fans in Tallahassee this weekend wanted to see three games with the country’s top two-ranked teams. Instead they only saw two and three-quarter games. There is so much at stake and this was a high profile series. I understand the academic concerns but it would have been nice to see the third game not called after seven innings.

The rules are the rules and all teams know them going into each series but it would be nice to see a complete game. Baseball is a nine inning game at this level and it is not a game defined by the clock. If that was the case then we should just play for three hours then whoever is ahead at the end of the time period is declared the winner.

Baseball is does not play by a clock just like football, basketball and soccer don’t play an equal number of possessions. Those are clock sports and baseball is not nor should it be. I am not sure if this rule is still applicable for the ACC teams after the semester is over. Some games are played after the school year ends but what if one team is out of school but the other is still in school? What about May-mesters or summer school semesters? I know most baseball players don’t take summer school classes but what if one did?

I am not sure of the answers. Maybe we should start all games at noon on Sunday. Maybe we should have double headers on Saturday. Maybe we should just continue to run the risk of ties and non-complete baseball games.

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